Performance-Based Testing System and Method Employing Emulation and Virtualization

ABSTRACT

A system permitting virtual server images to be reused and repurposed to provide for different application environments for performance-based testing by providing a plurality of virtual hard drive images.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

All references cited in this specification, and their references, are incorporated by reference herein where appropriate for teachings of additional or alternative details, features, and/or technical background.

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention generally relates to a performance-based testing computer system and method utilizing emulation and virtualization techniques to allow for extemporaneous selection of differing scenarios for adjudging the skill of users with respect to one or more application programs.

2. Description of the Related Art

Performance-based testing, or “cPBT,” is an examination approach wherein candidates must interact with real or simulated systems. PBT puts the test taker in one or more situations wherein the test taker must use his or her knowledge, demonstrate his or her skills, solve common problems and/or perform troubleshooting tasks, which are believed by the test crafter to correlate with the specialized knowledge and skill needed for performing certain tasks and activities. PBT is used in many industries and professions to test competency. For example, firemen, police officers, airline pilots, and flight deck crew are often tested using performance-based testing. If their test scores fall below key performance indicators, they are sent back to training or otherwise taken off the job.

PBT may take the form of interactive software simulation, wherein test items simulate the behavior of a particular software product and in the context of the simulation, the test taker is asked to perform specified functions correctly within the simulation. Interactive software simulation is a particularly useful strategy for gauging proficiency in the utilization of computer software programs. Unlike computer-based training (“CBT”) which moves a user linearly through a course of study, interactive software simulation places the user in a simulation of a computer application and asks the test taker to perform a function as if they were using real software Interactive software simulation may permit the application to be simulated without the need for the application to have special programming “hooks,” and without the need for the real application to be present on the testing workstation. Such programs may be self-contained, eliminating variation between different operating systems, product versions and languages.

In an information technology intensive era, companies are looking to streamline the hiring of computer-savvy individuals. This includes assessing their educational needs.

Evaluating potential and current employees can be a costly venture if it is found after a probationary period that the employee is ill-equipped to perform the job for which he or she was hired or trained. In a highly competitive and rapidly evolving field, it is often vital that employees come to the workplace with a grasp of the abilities their jobs demand. In situations where none of the prospective candidates possess all the necessary skills and abilities, testing can indicate which candidates will require the least amount of training. It can also show whether any candidates possess the skills to begin working and whether they have a strong enough grasp of materials to pick up the remaining skills through on-the-job training.

Degrees of computer performance testing complexity can vary greatly from testing a secretary in the use of a word processor, to testing an information technology professional in complex computer system administration. Administrators of such widely varying tests must establish environments to meet the criteria of the job. In particular, the administrator must pay attention to validity and reliability issues each time a test is given.

Validity refers to proof that a test accurately measures the skill or set of skills it is intended to gauge. Methods of assessing test validity include content, construct and criterion validation. Content validity refers to proof, normally provided by subject-matter experts, that items in a test cover the most important and frequently-used knowledge, skill and abilities needed to accomplish the job being measured by the test. Construct validity refers to proof that the individual items in a test are accurate measurements of the subject being tested. Criterion validity refers to proof that the overall test accurately correlates with some other independent measure.

Reliability references the ability of the test to provide consistent, replicable information about a user's performance. Reliability is a prerequisite to validity. Reliability depends on the consistency of the simulation of the test tasks and the consistency of rating responses to the tasks. For testing agencies, accuracy, validity and reliability of their computer performance tests are major selling points.

A computer systems administrator may frequently provide a complete network system, including workstation, server, applications and documents for a PBT. Computer networks may entail connecting hubs, wiring, and software. People are needed to make the network perform to provide the platform of applications desired, such as word processing, computer aided design and the like.

Once the realm of mainframe computers, networks with multiple servers handle everything from websites, to application support, to email, and to accounting. As the need for more separation and more services has risen, more servers have been implemented to cope with the need. However the increase in equipment has brought about management headaches for administration staff to maintain every unit at the required reliability level.

Recently there has been introduced a method of employing “virtual machines,” something pioneered on mainframes by companies such as IBM. So-called “virtualization” is the process of presenting a logical grouping or subset of computing resources so that they can be accessed in ways that give benefits over the original configuration. The term “virtual machine” references software that forms a virtualized environment, that is an environment which appears to a guest operating system as hardware, but is actually simulated and contained by the host system. One type of virtual machine is the VMware virtual machine by International Business Machines.

Internet hosting companies have become the primary users of virtualization. Using the abstraction of a virtual server, a hosting company can support multiple web servers on a single computer, considerably reducing their maintenance and support cost. While operating on a shared machine, virtualization may have the effect of providing complete environments with all the security of a dedicated machine, yet sharing the backup, archiving, monitoring, and related services for the system administrator.

A group of machines that have similar architecture or design specifications may be considered to be members of the same “family.” Although a group of machines may be in the same family because of their similar architecture and design considerations, machines may vary widely within a family according to their clock speed and other performance parameters.

Each family of machines executes instructions that are unique to the family. The collective set of instructions that a particular machine or family of machines can execute is known as the machine's “instruction set.” As an example, the instruction set used by the Intel 80×86 processor family is incompatible with the instruction set used by the PowerPC processor family.

The uniqueness of a particular family among computer systems also typically results in incompatibility among other elements of hardware architecture of other computer systems. For example, a computer system manufactured with a processor from the Intel 80×86 processor family will have a hardware architecture that is different from the hardware architecture of a computer system manufactured with a processor from the PowerPC processor family. Because of the uniqueness of the machine's instruction set and a computer system's hardware architecture, application software programs are typically written to run on a particular computer system running a particular operating system.

To expand the number of operating systems and application programs that can run on a particular computer system, a field of technology has developed in which a given computer having one type of central processing unit (“CPU”) called a host, will include a software and/or hardware-based emulator that allows the host computer to emulate the instruction set of an unrelated type of CPU, called a guest. Thus, the host computer will execute an application that will cause one or more host instructions to be called in response to a given guest instruction. Therefore, the host computer can both run software designed for its own hardware architecture and software written for a computer having an unrelated hardware architecture.

Typically, an emulator is divided into modules that correspond roughly to the emulated computer's subsystems. Most often, an emulator will be composed of the following modules: a CPU emulator or CPU simulator (the two terms are often interchangeable); a memory subsystem module; and various IFO devices emulators. Generally, buses are often not emulated, either for reasons of performance or simplicity, and virtual peripherals communicate directly with the CPU or the memory subsystem.

The CPU simulator is often the most complicated part of an emulator. Many emulators are written using “pre-packaged” CPU simulators in order to concentrate on good and efficient emulation of a specific machine. The simplest form of a CPU simulator is an interpreter, which follows the execution flow of the emulated program code and, for every machine code instruction encountered, executes operations on the host processor that are semantically equivalent to the original instructions.

When a guest computer system is emulated on a host computer system, the guest computer system is said to be a virtual machine, as the guest computer system exists only as a software representation of the operation of the hardware architecture in the host computer system. The terms “emulator” and “virtual machine” are sometimes used interchangeably to denote the ability to mimic or emulate the hardware architecture of an entire computer system. “Emulation” thus references a complete form of a virtual machine in which the complete hardware architecture is duplicated. Unlike “simulation,” which only attempts to reproduce a program's behavior, “emulation” attempts to model the state of the device being emulated. An emulator program that executes an application on the operating system software and hardware architecture of the host computer, such as a computer system having a PowerPC processor, mimics the operation of the entire guest computer system. The emulator program acts as the interchange between the hardware architecture of the host machine and the instructions transmitted by the software running within the emulated environment of the guest computer system. Emulations are used throughout the network industry to test new software rollouts prior to full implementation.

Administrators presently secure a server state by regular backups. In the event a failure of the system occurs, the administrator can bring the system back online with minor delays. An even more intensive task in the practice of backups is taking an “image” of an environment, such as a disk drive. An image is a computer file containing the complete contents and structure of a data storage medium or device. Images have an advantage in that in the event of a failure of the environment the structure would not have to be duplicated. The image file containing the structure negates the need to do so, thus decreasing the time to restore or build up a drive or environment.

Emulated computer systems typically involve the use of a virtual hard drive image. To emulate the presence of a physical hard drive for the guest operating system, the emulation program creates a virtual hard drive image. The emulation program will present the virtual hard drive image to the guest operating system. The guest operating system will boot from the virtual hard drive image and will refer to the virtual hard drive image for all other functions necessitating reading from or writing to a hard drive. The virtual hard drive image often exists as a single file on the physical hard drive of the computer system. Thus, the entire contents of the virtual hard drive of the guest computer system are represented as a single file on the physical hard drive of the host computer system.

In present computer performance testing administrators must manually create not only the test itself, but also the environment. Typically such tests are set up on multiple computers in a network system. For every possible scenario, there must be a method to present the test in a uniform manner and archive the test such that it can be given at a later time without undue burden on the system administrators. In some cases, test providers may need several hundred examples of suitable tests to sample from. Typically they seek a straightforward and manageable means to provide such tests. Having system administrators configure and reconfigure test platforms is onerous especially in light of the requirements for better return on company investments. All of this may be very costly.

Computer performance-based testing, as compared to multiple choice format testing, may also be more costly in that it may require significantly more time in the evaluation of the appropriateness of a response. While scoring of the examination may be designed to provide somewhat granular and discrete answers, distinctly right or wrong answers are typically much less common than on a multiple choice test as a result of the multiple correct routes to respond to a proposed scenario available on performance-based tests.

There is a need for improved computer performance-based testing methods that do not require the set-up of numerous stand-alone computers or a pervasive need for system administrators to configure and reconfigure test platforms on a network system. Further, there is a need for computer performance-based testing methods which allow for extemporaneous administration of tests depending on the test taker designated to take the test. In addition, there is a need for new methods to improve the granularity of performance-based tests in order to more adequately assess the skills of the person being tested.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

There is provided herein a computer implemented method to a plurality of test takers for providing different performance-based tests utilizing software. Such method includes emulating operating systems on a single server to form a plurality of virtual server images. The plurality of virtual server images may be associated with a plurality of hard drive images representative of a plurality of different performance-based tests. The plurality of application images may be executable using one of the plurality of virtual server images to allow for interaction with at least one of the plurality of hard drive images. Optionally, at least one emulated operating system may be separate instances of the same family of operating system, or may be of another family of operating system, or is or is not in the same family of operating systems as the base operating system. The computer implemented method may further comprise the step of randomly selecting one of the plurality of hard drive images for interaction with the virtual server image wherein, for example, one or more of the virtual hard drive images is a word processing document or a graphical depiction.

One embodiment comprises a computer implemented system of providing a set of performance based tests to a test taker, said system comprising: a server having a base operating system; an emulator residing on the server, the emulator emulating at least one operating system in an operating system; data storage operatively associated with the emulator, the data storage storing an image of at least one application program executable using at least one emulated operating system, and the data storage storing a plurality of distinct virtual hard drive images executable using at least one emulated operating system each virtual hard drive being operatively configured to portray different scenarios to the test taker. Optionally, the emulator's operating system may or may not be distinct from the server's operating system. The emulator may be either a software or hardware emulator or may comprise both hardware and software. The data storage may be part of the server and may be part of or remote from the server. The one or more virtual hard drive images may be operatively associated with two or more application program images. The computer implemented system may further comprise a random selection software operatively configured to randomly select one virtual hard drive image from among a plurality of virtual hard drive images. Portrayal with respect to one or more virtual hard drives may require a set of responses from the test taker. The computer implemented system may further comprise a program defining a set of rules for automatically analyzing the appropriateness of the set of responses from the test taker with respect to the portrayal.

Another embodiment comprises a computer-readable data transmission containing data structure comprising: a first portion identifying a virtual server image that a client is requesting from a server housing a plurality of virtual server images; a second portion identifying an application image and hard drive image stored on a storage device associated with the server, the storage device housing a plurality of application images and hard drive images associated with the application images. The transmission may further comprise a third portion identifying the client from other clients.

Yet another embodiment comprises a computer implemented method of providing a set of performance based tests to a first user and a second user comprising: emulating with a shared hardware on a common hardware architecture an operating system, one or more application software programs, and two or more hard drives to generate a first signal associated with the first user and a distinctly different second signal associated with the second user; and storing the first signal and the second signal. Optionally, the step of emulating may use virtualization techniques. The method may further comprise the step of transmitting the first signal and the second signal. The at least one software program may be selected, for example, from the group comprising: a word processing program, a graphics processing program, a drawing processing program, a video processing program, or an audio processing program.

BRIEF DESCRIPTIONS OF DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 illustrates in diagrammatic form an exemplary system server of the present invention; and

FIG. 2 is a diagram of the logical layers of the hardware and software architecture for an emulated operating environment in computer system.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The demonstration of the knowledge of certain facts in a test does not equate with the ability of the test taker to apply that knowledge in a meaning way. In order to more appropriately adjudge learning and understanding, it has been suggested that performance-based testing be employed. One type of performance-based testing is interactive computer simulation, wherein test items simulate the behavior of a particular software product and ask the user to perform a specified function correctly within that simulation.

A problem associated with interactive computer simulation is that it may be desirable that the test taker demonstrate efficiency with respect to a number of software products not designed to run on the same operating system. Testing of skill in using each of these products in the past might require the employment of a number of different computers. Recently, however, emulation strategies have been developed in the computing environment which allows one of more disparate family software programs to be run on a common piece of hardware.

FIG. 2 illustrates a diagram of the logical layers of the hardware and software architecture for an exemplary conventional emulated operating environment in computer system 107. Emulation program 111 runs on host operating system 109 and host hardware architecture 108. Emulation program 111 emulates guest computer system 113, including guest operating system 115. Guest software application 117 runs on guest operating system 115. In the emulated operating environment of FIG. 2, because of the operation of emulation program 111, guest software application 117 can run on computer system 107 even though guest software application 117 might be designed to run on an operating system that may be generally incompatible with host operating system 109 and host hardware architecture 108.

Such emulation strategies allow for a single piece of hardware, such as a server, to be segregated so as to permit the running of software applications on the common hardware although such applications are normally only executable using a different operating system.

In embodiments of the present invention, emulation strategies are employed to permit individual test takers to be challenged with a number of different software applications irrespectively of the operating system for which they were configured. Such system, for example, would allow a test taker to be tested on his or her skills with Macintosh drawing programs as well as Microsoft Word. However, it is recognized herein that segregation of a server into a number of stand alone virtual servers in itself does not overcome the problem faced by administrators of performance-based tests in having to constantly update and reformat testing to assure that subsequent test takers do not learn from previous test takers.

To overcome such problem, in one embodiment there is provided a number of virtual hard drive images, each of which is directed to a different scenario executable by an application hosted by the virtual server. Such virtual hard drive images can be used by the virtual server image to recreate different application environments, and to proffer different test takers different data within the same application. By changing out the different virtual hard drive image the virtual server image can be reused and re-purposed dramatically reducing the cost to develop performance-based assessment scenarios.

For example, a test taker seeking to show his or her abilities with respect to Visio, or another proprietary drawing program, may be asked to prepare certain charts or drawings. If the test taker is seeking employment in the marketing department of an electrical engineering company, the virtual hard drive image associated with the program may be selected from one or more virtual hard drive images that propose a scenario that requires the test taker to demonstrate proficiency in importing drawings or preparing flow charts. If the test taker is seeking employment as an electrical engineer, the virtual hard drive image for testing purposes may be selected from one or more virtual hard drive images proposing a scenario that requires the test taker to prepare a electric circuit diagram. In each case, the test taker is tested with respect to the test taker's abilities with the drawing program, but each is faced with real-life scenarios that are important to their anticipated tasks at the company.

In one embodiment, the particular virtual hard drive image selected for testing purposes of the application may be in whole or in part selected at random. For example, one test taker electrical engineer may be faced with the task of computer drafting one type of electrical circuit, while another may be faced with the task of computer drafting another type of electrical circuit. The initial selection of virtual hard drive images may be selected in a directed fashion (e.g., an electrical circuit diagram scenario); however, the final selection of which virtual hard drive image is presented to any particular test taker used may be at random. Randomization is useful in preventing one test taker from affecting the response of another test taker, at the time of the test, or at a later date.

The scenario presented to a test taker may be in the form of a series of commands or requests for the test taker to perform. For example, the test taker may be requested to use a software program to determine the stresses and strains on a particular engineered structure, to resolve an IT problem indicated by the scenario to have occurred, or to summarize data necessary to resolve a scenario.

In one embodiment there is provided a software program which automatically grades a test taker's responses to a given PBT. Such program is configured to compare responses (keystrokes, etc,) against a library of responses, each of which has been given a pre-determined point grade value. Such library of responses may be compiled from prior responses or may be actively compiled as a test taker takes the PBT (with appropriate “grading” added thereafter). If a response of a test taker is not found in the library, manual grading may be required.

Now turning to FIG. 1, there is shown an exemplary embodiment system server 105 of the present disclosure. Such system server 105 comprises a server partitioned into a number of virtual servers, e.g., virtual server no. 1 (10) to virtual server no. N (10′). Each virtual server may have one or more users (5, 5′, 5″, 5′″, and 5″″) that are authorized to have root (15, 15′) access to the virtual server. Each virtual server may be designed to emulate different system software (30, 30′) which may make use of different system libraries (35, 35′). System libraries (35, 35′) may comprise a collection of precompiled routines that system software (30, 30′) may uses and which allow linkage to a number of programs.

System server 105 comprises a virtualization software layer 40 which permits creation and execution of different virtual servers (10 to 10′) on the server. System server 105 runs on its own host operating system 45, which may be distinct from the virtual server environments. System server 105 comprises both software and hardware (50) components, and typically is run in a network environment (55) allowing for access by multiple workstations simultaneously.

Each virtual server (10 to 10′) is operatively configured to allow for section of among a plurality of application images (85/90 to 100) and a plurality of virtual hard drive images (60, 65, 70, 75 to 80) to permit a user (5, 5′, 5″, 5′″, and 5″″) to allow for different scenarios with respect to any application program for various test takers based upon the selection of the virtual server (10 to 10′), application image (85/90 to 100) and virtual hard drive image (60, 65, 70, 75 to 80) selected. Virtual hard drive image (60, 65, 70, 75 to 80) may be selected randomly, in whole or in part, to provide for differing scenarios being tendered to test takers on a random basis. By randomly changing the scenario with which a test taker may be confronted, the test taker is not allowed to cheat or rotely learn to pass the test.

Statement Regarding Preferred Embodiments

While the invention has been described with respect to the foregoing, those skilled in the art will readily appreciate that various changes and/or modifications can be made to the invention without departing from the spirit or scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims. 

1. A computer implemented system of providing a set of performance based tests to a test taker, said system comprising: a server having a base operating system; an emulator residing on said server, said emulator emulating at least one operating system in an operating system family; data storage operatively associated with said emulator, said data storage storing an image of at least one application program executable using the said at least one emulated operating system, and said data storage storing a plurality of distinct virtual hard drive images executable using the said at least one emulated operating system, each virtual hard drive being operatively configured to portray different scenarios to said test taker.
 2. The computer implemented system of claim 1, wherein said emulator's operating system is distinct from the said server's base operating system.
 3. The computer implemented system of claim 1, wherein said emulator's operating system is not distinct from the said server's base operating system.
 4. The computer implemented system of claim 1, wherein said emulator is a software emulator.
 5. The computer implemented system of claim 1, wherein said emulator is a hardware emulator.
 6. The computer implemented system of claim 1, wherein said emulator comprises both hardware and software.
 7. The computer implemented system of claim 1, wherein said data storage is part of said server.
 8. The computer implemented system of claim 1, wherein said data storage is remote from said server.
 9. The computer implemented system of claim 1, wherein one or more virtual hard drive images is operatively associated with two or more application program images.
 10. The computer implemented system of claim 1, further comprising a random selection software operatively configured to randomly select one virtual hard drive image from among a plurality of virtual hard drive images.
 11. The computer implemented system of claim 1, wherein said portrayal with respect to one or more virtual hard drives requires a set of responses from said test taker.
 12. The computer implemented system of claim 11, further comprising a program defining a set of rules for automatically analyzing the appropriateness of the set of responses from said test taker with respect to said portrayal.
 13. A computer implemented method for providing different performance based tests utilizing software to a plurality of test takers, said method comprising: emulating operating systems on a single server, to form a plurality of virtual server images; associating with each of said plurality of virtual server images a plurality of hard drive images representative of a plurality of different performance-based tests, and a plurality of application images executable using one of said plurality of virtual server images to allow for interaction of one or more application images with at least one of said plurality of hard drive images.
 14. The computer implemented method of claim 13, wherein at least one emulated operating system is in the same family of operating systems as the base server operating system.
 15. The computer implemented method of claim 13, wherein at least one emulated operating system is not in the same family of operating systems as the base server operating system.
 16. The computer implemented method of claim 13, further comprising: randomly selecting one of said plurality of hard drive images for interaction with said virtual server image.
 17. The computer implemented method of claim 13, wherein one or more of said virtual hard drive images is a word processing document.
 18. The computer implemented method of claim 13, wherein one or more of said virtual hard drive images is a graphical depiction.
 19. A computer-readable data transmission containing data structure comprising: a first portion identifying a virtual server image that a client is requesting from a server housing a plurality of virtual server images; a second portion identifying an application image and hard drive image stored on a storage device associated with said server, said storage device housing a plurality of application images and hard drive images associated with said application images.
 20. A computer-readable data transmission of claim 19, further comprising: a third portion identifying the client from other clients.
 21. A computer implemented method of providing a set of performance based tests to a first user and a second user comprising: emulating with a shared hardware on a common hardware architecture an operating system, one or more application software programs, and two or more hard drives to generate a first signal associated with said first user and a distinctly different second signal associated with said second user; and storing said first signal and said second signal.
 22. The computer implemented method of claim 21, wherein the step of emulating uses virtualization techniques.
 23. The computer implemented method of claim 21, further comprising transmitting said first signal and said second signal.
 24. The computer implemented method of claim 21, wherein at least one software program is selected from the group comprising: a word processing program, a graphics processing program, a drawing processing program, a video processing program, an audio processing program. 